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Peas In A Pod (A Life Update)

In fact, all kinds of things have been going on, here in real life. Martin went to Brazil and Argentina to visit family and old friends and give a speech at his old high school. I was flying solo with the kids for almost three weeks. Before that I spent 10 days in California with my best friend and her new baby and her family, and went to a great conference on nonmonogamy. June was a full month. Very full, like how could I pack so much living into one short month? And yet I did, and it was wonderful.

This month is stretching out before us in a vast uncharted expanse of summer vacation. Birthday parties, housewarming parties, picnics in the park, trips to the lake house in Maine with Molly: this is our agenda.

I could say a lot more about having spent a few weeks on my own with the kids (fun, challenging, a little lonely at night but also rewarding), about that new baby (I had forgotten how raw we come into this world! and how precious), about that conference (so much intention went into it, and it really showed. also I was interviewed for a great podcast by the awesome Cunning Minx), about going to Maine (how it’s like a parallel world which reminds me so much of my own childhood and also gives me this blessing of slow time in an otherwise fast life, not to mention time with Molly)…

I’m out of breath just thinking about it all.

Here’s what I’m really wanting to grab and hold with words today: the peas in a pod incident.

We went camping recently, to this big annual camping retreat that over 100 of our friends and friends of friends go to each year. It’s amazing: such a safe container of wildness, where the kids can just go feral for days. They run in a pack with their friends while the adults play board games and talk and do circus things. We all make ice cream in the woods. It’s a kind of magic, the kids look forward to it all year with a glee usually reserved for birthdays.

So we’re there, and I was pushing Serena in a green net hammock, when we had the following conversation:

“Do you ever wish you were a little kid again, Mama?”

“Yes, I do wish that sometimes.”

“Like right now? Is right now one of the times when you wish you were a kid like me?”

“Yes, I wish I was a little pea in a pod just like you right now.”

*pause*

“I am *not* a pea in a pod, Mama. I am peas in a pod. Because if I were a pea in a pod, I would be lonely. And I am not lonely.”

So that’s how it is around here. Not lonely, full of the magical realism of childhood, and plural when you least expect it.